


It Always Comes Back (Whether You Want It To or Not)

by Lazy8



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Concussions, Gen, Pre-Canon, Sibling bickering, accidental injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:02:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25489681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lazy8/pseuds/Lazy8
Summary: Katara and Sokka actually are in agreement that she should be able to defend herself. They just have differing opinions as tohow.
Relationships: Katara & Sokka (Avatar)
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1846456
Comments: 10
Kudos: 59
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	It Always Comes Back (Whether You Want It To or Not)

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:** Concussion  
>  **Hurt Character:** Katara  
>  **Comforting Character(s):** Other/Your Choice

" _Why_ are we doing this again?" Katara grumbled. Her brother could be obnoxious at the best of times, but dragging her out of her bedroll and out onto the ice before the crack of dawn for _boomerang lessons_ of all things was just a little bit much even by _his_ usual standards.

"I told you, Katara." Sokka took a stance on the ice and brandished his weapon of choice. "You need to be able to defend yourself if the Fire Nation attacks us again."

Katara rubbed her forehead. The next time she saw her father, he was getting an earful for leaving Sokka in the position of "man of the house". Telling him he needed to stay behind to "protect his sister" was not only patronizing and—and sexist, it had only served to puff up Sokka's already over-inflated ego. "That's what my waterbending is for!"

"Uh-huh. Suuuuuure." Sokka crossed his arms with an air of superiority, and Katara's eyebrow twitched as she aimed her best glare his way. "If you can defend yourself so well, O Master Bender, then how about a demonstration?"

Katara had to admit, at least to herself, that he had a point. No way was she ever going to concede to her _brother_ that he was right about anything, though—especially not when he insisted on treating her like some helpless little girl when she'd _already_ spent the previous night holding her nose as she scrubbed out his dirty socks. So, she raised her hand and called up some of the snow at her feet, determined to at _least_ wipe the smug expression off of his face with a well-placed snowball…

…but the snow only gave a halfhearted quiver before splashing back down at her feet, and before she had the chance to try again Sokka was rushing her with a yell and his club drawn, and Katara was unceremoniously knocked off her feet and right into a snowbank. To add insult to injury, her brother shoved a handful of snow down the back of her parka before he let her go.

"Hey!" she protested, pushing herself into a sitting position to glare at her brother's smugly grinning face. "That was no fair!"

"Oh, wasn't it, now?" Sokka smirked at her and crossed his arms. "And what makes you think that the Fire Nation is going to be _fair_ the next time they plow a ship into the village?"

…okay, so maybe he actually did have a really good point.

Defeated, she pushed herself up out of the snowbank with a sigh and accepted her brother's offered hand. "Fine," she grumbled, brushing snow from her parka. "Let's just get this over with so I can get back to doing something that's actually _useful_."

So, she did her best (which, in all honesty, still wasn't very) to stand still and listen patiently while Sokka showed her how and where to grip and demonstrated the correct wrist movement to make it come back and it would be _so much easier_ if she could just defend herself with her water. The first couple of times she threw the thing, she wasn't even trying anymore, and Sokka had to go running across the ice to retrieve it from wherever it had fallen because Katara refused to ("This was _your_ stupid idea in the first place, _you_ can go get it if it's so important to you").

Finally, Sokka just glared at her with his hands on his hips. "Katara, I _know_ you're slacking off on this. We're not leaving until you can make it come back."

Katara shot back a glare of her own. The sun was now well above the horizon, Gran-Gran was probably going out of her mind with worry, and Sokka _knew_ that she had chores she needed to be doing. What's more, she was pretty sure he was doing this on _purpose_.

Glaring, she snatched the boomerang from her brother's hand. Whatever reasoning he'd used to make her actually _agree_ with him was long-forgotten—right now, she just wanted to _finish_ this stupid training session so she could get back to what she was actually _supposed_ to be doing. The boomerang flew from her hand as she threw it with far more force than she actually needed to, and she watched with satisfaction as it flew into the sky and came curving back, closer and closer and…

The next thing she knew, she was back at home and lying in bed on the floor, with her Gran-Gran's worried face hovering over her.

"What happened?" she demanded, starting to prop herself up before a wave of dizziness washed over her and made her reconsider that maybe the floor was just fine after all, thanks. "How did I get here?"

In response, Gran-Gran only pursed her lips, and leaned forward to lift Katara's eyelids, one after the other, so she could peer into her eyes. "You really don't remember?" she asked at last.

"Remember _what?_ The last thing I remember was trying to catch Sokka's boomerang, and then the next thing I know, I'm here."

Gran-Gran was just opening her mouth to answer when Sokka burst in through the door of their home.

"I'm sooooorry!" he wailed, his eyes going to balls of liquid in his face. "I was just trying to help, but then… but then…"

"What your brother is trying to say," Gran-Gran continued after a few more moments made it clear that said brother's blubbering was not going to stop any time soon, "is that after you threw the boomerang for the final time, it returned and struck you in the head."

That… would certainly explain a few things. Katara reached up to rub her head, which she only just now realized was aching. She was disconcerted to feel the touch of bandages under her fingers.

"Yeah," Sokka picked up, and even though he wasn't crying anymore he still looked more shaken than Katara had ever seen him before, "you seemed off-balance, and your eyes wouldn't focus, and the creepiest part was, you didn't even seem to _notice_. You got right up and dusted yourself off and insisted on going back home and getting your chores done. That was about when I dragged you back here to Gran-Gran."

"And…?" Katara prompted when they both fell silent, with a nagging feeling that she was not going to like the answer.

"You kept right on insisting you were fine right up until I made you lie down. Then, you slept for nearly twenty-four hours."

Katara groaned, and buried her face in her hands. Once her brother got over his guilt, she was sure he was never going to let her live this down.

"The two of you can feel guilty or embarrassed later." Gran-Gran soothed a hand over Katara's forehead. "But for now, you need to rest."

So, Katara did.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a fairly minor concussion, as far as concussions go. I'm still trying to treat it seriously.
> 
> My original draft had this taking place in an AU where Zhao had succeeded in killing the Moon permanently, but decided that that was far too big of an idea to cram into a single oneshot.


End file.
